Category: crime and punishment

“He’s Got a Weapon!”

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.
—Voltaire

Our enemies are ridiculous. So why do they seem to be winning?

For today’s lesson, catch the pro-trans protests outside the offices of Netflix. Trans activists and a few of Netflix’s own trans employees were protesting the occasion of the online streaming giant’s “platforming” of comedian Dave Chappelle, whose latest special, The Closer, took a few digs at the huge influence that the tiny trans “community” has on American cultural and political life.

Chappelle referred to the way J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, was treated online for defending biological women, declared himself a feminist on “Team TERF,” and talked about a trans friend of his who committed suicide after defending him online in a previous comedy special trans-fracas.

Did Chappelle say something untrue? Unfunny? Doesn’t matter. What he said, protesters proclaimed, was hurtful.

Each of us will judge all that in our own way. But we should be able to agree on one thing: the way the small protest mob treated one counter-protester was not truthful but very ridiculous.

Relevant details: a man attended the event holding aloft a sign saying “We Like Dave” on the obverse and “Jokes Are Funny” on the reverse.

A protester on the trans side of the divide tore up his sign, leaving him holding the naked stick, then shouting, “He’s got a weapon!” The crowd echoed, “He’s got a weapon!”

Activists these days often say “speech is violence” and “words are weapons.” Here, they violently rob a man of his speech and declare what’s left of his attempt a literal weapon. They think they are clever. But they are merely ridiculous.

Not funny like Dave Chappelle.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment

To Emancipate

On this very day 162 years ago, federal troops re-captured the armory building at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, where John Brown and what was left of his raiders were holed up.

Brown and 21 men — 14 white, seven black — had arrived on Oct. 16, 1859, to seize weapons to arm the slave revolt they attempted to spark. Even before federal troops arrived, townspeople and militiamen had trapped Brown.

Battling against the raiders, a Marine and four townspeople lost their lives, including the town’s mayor and a free African American. Ten of Brown’s men were killed, five escaped, and seven were captured, tried, convicted and executed, including Brown. Two enslaved African Americans who joined Brown also died in the fighting.

Though the raid itself was a failure, it heralded that slavery could not stand.

“Until this blow was struck, the prospect for freedom was dim, shadowy and uncertain,” Frederick Douglass spoke decades after the Civil War ended. “The irrepressible conflict was one of words, votes and compromises.

“When John Brown stretched forth his arm the sky was cleared. . . . and the clash of arms was at hand.”

School kids learn that Brown was something of a madman, and indeed he was accused of atrocities in Kansas and elsewhere. But how long must a person allow a crime as serious as the enslavement of 4 million people to continue before taking up arms?

“It was his peculiar doctrine that a man has a perfect right to interfere by force with the slaveholder, in order to rescue the slave,” argued Henry David Thoreau in “A Plea for Captain Brown,” adding, “I agree with him.”

Peaceful democratic means are always preferred over violence. But had I been on John Brown’s jury, I would have voted to acquit.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment too much government

Government Loves Anarchists?

Post author By Editor
Post date October 6, 2021
5 Comments on Government Loves Anarchists?

Some of my best friends are anarchists. But theirs is a curious anarchism, for unlike the caricatures of anarchists of old, who — theorizing that since, in their minds, all states are illegitimate, they had free rein to shoot, bomb and monkey wrench the State and its supporters — my anarchist friends are friendly and non-violent.

They know they cannot achieve the kind of peaceful, stateless-but-lawful society they want with destruction.

Today’s best-known anarchists, however, aren’t like my friends. They are “Antifa,” and believe in initiating force. Together with Black Lives Matter, these “anarchists” upped the level of chaos to fever pitch during the months leading up to last November’s presidential election.

And they haven’t exactly stopped.

What do they hope to accomplish?

Well, don’t ask the FBI.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation doesn’t keep track of them.

Spencer Brown, writing at Townhall, explains: “In a congressional hearing last week titled ‘Confronting Violent White Supremacy (Part VI): Examining the Biden Administration’s Counterterrorism Strategy,’ FBI Assistant Director of Counterterrorism Timothy Langan said that the Bureau doesn’t consider Antifa to be an ‘organization,’ and as such does not have specific information on the group’s activities.”

This is how the FBI and the left in general can say that the biggest domestic terrorist threat is “right-wing extremism.”

The idea is, apparently, if you don’t look at the data — even define it out of existence — you cannot report on it!

Why would the FBI join Democrats in averting their eyes from anarchist (as well as Marxist and racist) violence?

Perhaps the de facto policy at play here is anarcho-tyranny, where the government lets violent crime run rampant. Why? So government actors can leverage chaos and public anxiety to increase government size and scope.

Do politicians and functionaries use Antifa “anarchists” to increase their power?

Never let a crisis go to waste.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment local leaders

Charges Dropped

Shannon Joy, arrest, School Board, Covid, protest

The best part of the story — not counting Shannon Joy’s pluck and defiance — is how promptly the prosecutor dropped the bogus charges of “criminal trespass” against her.

The Rochester mom and radio talk show host had been handcuffed while attending a Fairport school board meeting this August. Her dastardly deed consisted of wearing a mask wrong.

Joy figures that board members were sick and tired of her vocal criticism of their policies — she has a platform outside of board meetings — so, in collaboration with others, the board had staged her arrest with malice aforethought.

To supporters at the courthouse, Joy spoke of “bully tactics sometimes employed by school boards and superintendents who don’t want to hear from parents about their children’s education.”

The county’s policies about masks are less than uniform. PJMedia’s Megan Fox points out that in Monroe County and other nearby counties, people are not required to wear a mask “except in public schools, government buildings, and some doctors’ offices.”

Irony and hypocrisy were not eschewed by arresting officers. One cop teaming up to handcuff Shannon Joy was not wearing a mask. Another wore her own mask in the same under-the-chin fashion for which Joy was being hauled away. These officers did not, however, arrest themselves.

“How is this America?” Joy tweets above an arresting image of the arrest.

Well, it’s not the Mayberry America. It’s not the best America. But at least there was a refreshing return to common sense in her courtroom victory.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment incumbents international affairs

The Lurid Latest

Offensive.

Absurd.

Absolutely false.

Those are the words Representative Ilhan Omar used to describe the startling accusation against her — that she married her second husband to bring him into the country, and that he was actually her biological brother.

Most people would find such a scheme “offensive,” sure.

And it is “absurd” in the sense it would be a good plot point in a Christopher Buckley or Tom Sharpe farce-cum-satire, yes.

It is not absurd, however, as in impossible or completely out-of-character for the far-left Islamist Democrat from Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District.

But is it “absolutely false”?

Not according to Anton Lazarro, a GOP Minnesota operative who spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on private investigators to obtain DNA evidence of both alleged brother and ostensible sister and then published the results.

Omar’s incest/immigration scandal has criminal complexities.

“His website, IlhanOmarDNA.com,” writes Miranda Devine for The New York Post, “containing the DNA test results, was online briefly before it was taken down Wednesday.” I just checked moments ago, and the website is back up and running. Peruse at your leisure. The main contention is that “test results stated there is a 99.999998 percent chance that Omar and her second husband, Ahmed Elmi, now her ex-husband, are siblings, according to an analysis by British company Endeavor DNA Laboratories.”

No sooner had Mr. Lazarro posted it than the FBI arrested him on charges of “underage sex-trafficking.” And those charges have put the kibosh on a major publicity campaign against Rep. Omar — though the Post journalist appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight.

Lazarro, for his part, “is denying the charges,” writes Terresa Monroe-Hamilton for BizPac Review. “It remains to be seen if he is guilty or not, but the timing seems very, very convenient.”

A lurid story all around.

Offensive, though? Absurd? Absolutely untrue?

I’d like to know more.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment insider corruption

Cuomo, Exit Stage Left

Out in a fortnight.

Yesterday, New York’s governor said he’d resign in 14 days.

Dominating the headlines has been Andrew Cuomo’s sexual misconduct scandals.

“It’s [a] shame this is what the Democrats choose to go after Cuomo for, rather than for killing tens of thousands of elderly New Yorkers through his policy of putting COVID-positive patients into nursing homes,” we read at InfoWars.

But this is the usual thing to say . . . at least, for those of us who live and breathe and think outside the usual right-left continuum. And in this case, it may not be applicable.

How so?

Well, on Monday, Assembly Member Charles D. Lavine (D-13th A.D.), Judiciary Committee Chair, made it quite clear that the investigations (yes: plural) going into the impeachment of the governor are not limited to matters of sex. Allegations also considered?

Cuomo’s “improper use of government resources to write and produce a book”;
“allegations concerning [the] nursing home” fiasco; and
“that he provided preferential access to COVID-19 testing to certain friends and/or family members.”

But Cuomo himself isn’t talking up these other issues, which are critically important for the state he “runs.” In his resignation announcement, he dubbed one such indiscretion literally “thoughtless,” openly proclaiming that he “want[ed] to personally apologize” to a female state trooper who accused him of embarrassing sexual banter and unwanted touching.

Up front, however, was his proud proclamation of his support for “diversity.”

That is to mollify the current cultural left. But he quickly switched to blaming today’s loud and rash (rather than “sound” and “reasonable”) politics — on Twitter.

You don’t have to love social media to instead blame Cuomo for his own most grievous faults.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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